1. Field of Art
The present invention relates to a stored ice detecting device in an ice making apparatus for detecting whether there is present ice in the form of cubes or the like which have been fed to and stored in an ice bank from a body of the ice making apparatus for making ice from ice making water.
2. Prior Art
Automatic ice making apparatus have been used in places where ice is consumed in large quantities such as restaurants, hotels and bars, as well as in homes. As an example of this type of an ice making apparatus there is known the automatic ice-making machine of U.S. Pat. No. 4,332,146 entitled "Drive Force Transmitting Device for Ice-Making Tray of Automatic Ice-Making Machine". This ice-making machine is provided with an ice-making tray disposed above an ice bank and adapted to be turned over from an upward ice-making condition to release ice and then turned back by mean of a motor, and a stored ice detecting arm which is rotated interlockedly with the ice-making tray by means of the said motor and which detects whether ice is present in the ice bank.
These elements, namely the ice-making tray, ice bank and stored ice detecting arm, are disposed in a freeze storing chamber provided with an ice removal door. Where a predetermined quantity of ice is stored in the ice bank, the stored ice detecting arm comes into abutment with pieces of ice and detects this full condition.
On the other hand, where the ice bank contains only a small quantity of ice or is empty after consumption of ice therein, the stored ice detecting arm goes down to its lower limit and can detect such low condition.
Also known is the ice-making apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 3,545,217 entitled "Sensing Arm Mechanism for Ice Maker". In this ice making apparatus, an ice bank is provided in a door of a freezer and storing chamber, and a stored ice detecting arm for detecting ice stored in the ice bank is provided on the side of the freezer and storing chamber.
Other than the utilization of the above ice -making tray, there is also known an auger type ice making apparatus in which an evaporator constituting a refrigerating system is wound round an outer peripheral surface of a cylinder and then surrounded with a heat insulating material to thereby constitute a cooling cylinder; ice making water is introduced into the cooling cylinder through a water supply line connected to a lower part of the cylinder; and a thin ice layer formed on an inner peripheral wall surface of the cooling cylinder is scraped off and conveyed into the ice bank by means of a spiral rotary blade.
The conventional stored ice detecting arms are constituted integrally by a linear body or the like and they all detect stored ice at a predetermined certain detection level in the ice bank, so the quantity of ice to be detected cannot be adjusted easily. For adjusting the quantity of stored ice to be detected, it is necessary to disassemble a base frame of the ice making apparatus body having the stored ice detecting arm attached thereto at every change of detection level and change the detecting arm as a whole as required for a new detection level.
The present invention has been accomplished in view of the above-mentioned problems, and it is the object thereof to provide a stored ice detecting device in an ice making apparatus capable of easily changing and adjusting the stored ice detection level for an ice bank.